An index is a claim: “this number represents that market.” In public equities the claim is easy to honor — constituents trade continuously at visible prices, and the index is arithmetic on facts. Private markets deny an index both ingredients, which means every private-market benchmark is a set of editorial decisions wearing a number.
The three problems construction must solve
Pricing: constituents don’t print daily prices; the index must choose among trades, bids, round marks, and models — the same input hierarchy that governs single-company references, now compounded across constituents with different staleness. Selection: which companies get in? Any rule — by size, funding stage, trading activity — quietly tilts the index toward the visible and the traded, which are not a random sample of the private economy. Survivorship: private failures often disappear without a final print. An index that only registers the exits it can see will flatter the asset class by construction.
What honest private benchmarks are for
Direction and dispersion, not valuation. A well-built private index can say “sentiment in late-stage secondaries has moved this way this quarter” and “spreads have widened.” It cannot tell you what your shares are worth, and it should not be used to mark a portfolio position — the constituents’ estimates inherit every caveat of indicative pricing, and averaging caveats does not remove them.
The disclosures that make one usable
Before trusting any private-market index, find: the constituent rule and its changes over time; the pricing source per constituent and how staleness is handled; the weighting scheme (equal? size? traded volume?); the rebalance calendar; and whether history was backfilled after the rule was chosen — backfilled history is a forecast in a costume. Our Index page publishes exactly these choices for the demonstration benchmark on this platform, which is labeled informational for all the reasons above.
Educational only. InvestNow is a demonstration platform. This page is general information, not investment, legal, or tax advice, and not an offer or solicitation of any security. Private-market investments are speculative, illiquid, and can lose their entire value. Consult a qualified professional about your circumstances.